According to Alexis Tsipras, Russia and Greece have "common roots, common struggle, common faith and also culture"

ATHENS, April 7. /TASS/. The Russian-Greek relations have a big potential, mainly in the fields of energy and tourism, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in an exclusive interview with TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman.

"There are opportunities to consider what can be done to further promote our relations in the tourist industry," Tsipras said.

"In Russia, I will have some very important meetings with President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Patriarch Kirill, of Moscow and all Russia. Also, I will address a student audience at one of the central universities," he said. "From that standpoint I believe that the opportunities for exchanges and cooperation at the education level between Greek and Russian universities is a major aspect of strengthening our mutual relations."

The prime minister said that Russia and Greece had "common roots, common struggle, common faith and also culture."

" Your country has a very rich culture, indeed. And Greek culture is the cradle of the world civilization. I believe that we may have very meaningful ties and strengthen bonds between the two countries in these spheres," he added.

Tsipras said 2016 would be "a great chance" to promote bilateral relations as cross year of Russia in Greece and of Greece in Russia.

"Also, this year we will be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the great anti-fascist victory, a victory of peoples over Nazism. This jubilee is of special importance to the Russian people and to the Greek people. As I have already told you, our peoples have forged fraternal relations, because they were fighting together at critically important moments in history," he said.